Week 1 Argentina

Hey all! FYI I forgot my camera cord, so no pictures this week. Sorry. I’m so bad at pictures.

This has been a whirlwind of a week! I am in the city of Centenario which is west of Neuquen, I believe. My companions name if Elder Hanzon. He is from South Jordan, Utah. We are getting along really well and I’m enjoying being with him! Our pension is really nice! It’s got lots of space and a fairly nice kitchen!

So the work in my area is basically at zero. Elder Hanzon has told me that basically we are opening a new area, meaning that we have 0 investigators and are basically just going through all our Antiguos (old investigators and contacts for this area) and trying to contact them and make progress. Because of this, it’s been really hard for me. I thought I would come down here, and we would be so busy teaching and visiting with people but that’s not how it is. We spend a lot of our days just walking to different parts of our area for appointments with members. The mission president has also said that we shouldn’t knock (clap) doors because it is so ineffective. So we just try and make contact with old investigators and hope and pray for the best. It’s so different than what I thought it was going to be.

Another thing I have to adjust to is the way of life here. So I thought that we would be super busy just all the time running here and there to teach and find and all these things. Wrong. So, at least where I am, the people aren’t very receptive and so there isn’t a whole lot to do. We do what we can but we spend a lot of time just kind of hanging out. It sounds worse than it is, but it’s still pretty bad. Elder Shearer, one of the elders in my district, was telling me that that is just how it is and I have to adjust. He told me he was the same way and I just have to adjust. It’s so weird. But yea, Not much happening, as far as the work goes.

A few things about Argentina:  1) everything is dirty here. The weather here is normally dry, but it’s been super wet and so everything is muddy. All my clothes, dirty. All the streets, dirty. Inside all the houses, dirty. That is a big adjust that I have to make. I like clean. 0_0    2) Dogs. Everywhere. There are stray dogs everywhere. It’s Insane!! At our pension we have 4 that follow us around. It’s hilarious! The elders here have named them. I will send a picture before I leave. 3) The food is delicious! We have eaten at members houses for lunch every day and the food is just all so good!! Yesterday, we had pizza with a family. It was homemade pizza and they made 9 pizzas. There were 8 of us there. But it was sooooo good!! All the food is so good! 4) The language. Yikes. I thought I would be able to get by but I literally can’t understand them. The Castillion Spanish is so difficult. Instead of like y sounds they use ch sounds and so the words I thought I knew, I have to relearn pronouncing them differently and the way they speak, I can’t understand yet. It’s been a real struggle. I’d appreciate all the prayers I can get! I literally sit at our lunch appointments silent because I don’t understand. Then they ask me questions, and I always need them to repeat it so I can understand and about 50% of the time, I answer a question that they weren’t asking. For example, they might ask, "How long have you been in the mission?" and I, not understanding and guessing will say "I’m from Seattle, Washington!" It’s a struggle.

But other than that, I am having so much fun and am learning so much!! It’s been a great experience so far and I know there is so much more to come! I know I’m forgetting a lot to tell you guys, but email me if you have specific questions! Love you all so much!!

 

Shout outs-

1) Sister Tryon - Thanks for adding me to your weekly letters! I love hearing about what’s going on back at home!!

2)Chelease - Probably spelled that wrong. Love you anyway! Thanks for the donuts! My district and I really enjoyed them!!

P.S. I told you all that we were going to have a General Authority speak to us in the MTC. We had Elder L. Tom Perry come and speak to us! It was amazing!! It was so cool to have an Apostle come and speak to us. But we got another surprise!! So on the Sunday before I left, we had our usual Sunday devotional. We watched a talk by Elder David A. Bednar. It was super great. It was about acting as Christ did. It was called Character of Christ. I suggest watching it! But after the video, Elder Bednar just strolls in like it’s no big deal!! It was so cool. So he told us, "Ask me anything!" basically, so they passed around mics and we could just ask him whatever doctrinal questions we had. It was amazing!! I learned so much!!